GreenVolts GV1 and Concentrating Photovoltaic Test Site

Google search revealed an unlisted YouTube video of the GV1’ (prime) Concentrating PhotoVoltaic (CPV) site on the channel named GreenVoltsInc with the description:

Here you can see the entire site that will provide 2.6 MW on Kelso Road, the 320 kW installed and operating, and the PG&E sub station.

The original unlisted link is dead but has reappeared here and is embedded below for as long as it lasts.

I believe the video was recorded using an R/C (Remote Control) helicopter that flew almost Icarus close to transmission lines from the PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG) Kelso Substation. I captured some screen shots just in case the video disappears again.

Two weeks earlier, the southern eight (8) arrays of the fifth GV1’ tracker were still under construction, and an errant tracking array was evident as shown in the photo below. To be honest, I was not convinced about the overall GV1’ tracking relative to the sun’s position that afternoon.

If the GV2-250 250 W Concentrator Photovoltaic Panels (instead of modules) are used, sixteen (16) arrays with 16 (sixteen) modules replicated across five (5) trackers does pencil out to the 320 kW (kiloWatt) capacity. For a 2.6 MW (MegaWatt) project, less than the 3 MW stated on the GreenVolts, Inc. website, forty-one (41) trackers will be required, rounding up, to complete the GV1’ project.

Was GreenVolts Inc. awarded a $252560 Treasury Grant on April 4, 2011, for completing a project phase of GV1’? I am still investigating this.

I visited the site first in the afternoon and then in the morning. As suggested, the morning provided my best view to date of the front side of the GreenVolts modules along with a surprise. Less than two days after the first visit, half of the arrays on the second tracker were out of commission as shown in the photo.

Brian Hinman of Oak Investment Partners said in an email that “GreenVolts is installing a lot of hardware now, and it works exactly as designed. We have 18 months of operating history on the new architecture.”

The undifferentiated modules appear to consist of twenty-four (24) Fresnel lenses each paired with a III-V multijunction terrestrial solar cell. A PC (Personal Computer) processor style heat sink is mated with each solar cell on the back of the module. Further details are unavailable and nary a single patent application has ever been published by GreenVolts.